at ways to reduce the stress on the ani-mals to ensure that they arrive healthy.”“I was kind of shocked by how well itwent,” adds Lynden Air Cargo’s Director ofCargo Jerry Stout, who helped to load theanimals into the containers with the crewat Portage. “It was an exceptional under-taking; we moved one hundred animalsin six trips total, and there were no inci-dents. The animals were brought in fromthe roaming pen, then radio-collared andvaccinated and shuttled through a runwaychute into the containers. Animals this bigcan be hard to handle, but all of them arealive and doing well.”All one hundred bison arrived safelyin Shageluk within three days, and ei-ther walked, trotted, or galloped out ofthe boxes into a four-acre temporary pen,where they quickly acclimated to the area.“To get them all there, safely, in three daysis almost beyond belief,” Harms says, add-ing that project biologists were extremelyhappy with the transportation phase.

Managing the Herd

Now that the wood bison have made itto their new home, they will be given achance to settle in and adapt to their sur-roundings. “We’ll be holding the bison atthe site for one to two weeks until theirstress levels return to normal and theyacclimate to the climate,” says Harms.“Then we’ll lead them to their new habi-tat so that they can begin calving.”ADF&G staff will establish feedingstations along the trail to the herd’snew location. When the hay is gone, itis hoped that the bison will switch tonatural grasses. “We’re going to weanthem slowly,” says Harms. Once the bi-son reach their destination, the pregnantfemales will begin calving in May, whichwill help to establish the site as a ‘homehabitat’ for the herd. After spring break-up, a number of larger male wood bisonwill be brought into Shageluk but will bebarged instead of flown due to their size.

All of the herd members will be
tracked, either through radio or satellite
collars, and ADF&G will spend the next
year or two monitoring their progress.
“Hunting is part of the long-term picture, though it will take a while for the
herd to get sustainable,” says Harms.
Eighty percent of the harvest will be
determined by drawing permits; 90
percent will go to Alaska residents and
10 percent to out-of-state hunters. The
other 20 percent of the state’s permits
will be issued in villages in the GASH
region (Grayling, Anvik, Shageluk, and
Holy Cross).

A land use fee per hunter of $300 forresidents and between $500 and $1,000for non-residents will also be pooled toenable the village corporations to pro-vide scholarships for local youth inter-ested in studying wildlife. Accordingto Harms, the harvest could be offeredanywhere from three to ten years fromnow, depending on the size of the herd.

“We’ve been given an opportunityto go back and potentially correct aman-made wrong,” says Michaelis.“By reintroducing a large-scale grazerthat hasn’t been represented in Alaskafor the past one hundred years, we’llbe bringing a missing piece of the eco-system back. It’s such an unbelievableconservation effort, and a success on somany different levels.”People living in the area welcome themassive creatures.

“We are hoping that the reintroduction of the wood bison will take some
of the pressure off of the moose in this
area,” says Arnold Hamilton, a resident
of Shageluk who represents the GASH
region villages on the ADF&G advisory
board. “Our people’s way is subsistence,
and there is a lot of pressure from outsiders for moose, so hopefully in future
years, the bison will help ease this. The
villagers here had no objection to the
reintroduction; we were just waiting for
the animals. It took quite a while since it
first started, but now that everyone has
come together, it was able to be done.
We’re glad that it finally happened.” R

Vanessa Orr is the former editor
of the Capitol City Weekly in
Juneau.

Above: A retrofitted “bison box” and a
Lynden Air Cargo herc at Shageluk.
Above right: The community welcomed
the wood bison.

Right: The initial herd of wood bison cows
and calves relocated to Shageluk.